'Moby-Dick' marathon wraps up with a handful of 'hardcores'

Thirty-six hardcore marathoners made it through the entire 17th annual 'Moby-Dick' Marathon, a 25-hour journey through the 1851 classic that has become part of the canon of American literature.

MATT CAMARA

NEW BEDFORD — Anne Fischer and Tulay Ugulral trekked from New York to the Whaling City hoping to listen to more than 180 readers plow through a 162-year-old novel over 25 hours beginning Saturday and ending Sunday — and they couldn't have been happier.

"I sailed with him, that was how I felt. Ishmael took me on board," said Ugulral, a native of Turkey who recently acquired a fondness for Herman Melville.

The Empire State pair joined 34 other hard-core marathoners who made it through the New Bedford Whaling Museum's entire 17th annual Moby-Dick Marathon, a 25-hour journey through the 1851 classic that was originally panned by critics after it debuted only to become part of the canon of American literature.

"Fifteen years ago I fell in love with 'Moby-Dick,'" said Valerie Bassett, of Westport, who admitted that she left for a brief meal break Saturday night unlike the "hardcores" who don't leave the museum at all, but stayed the rest of the marathon, even reading in a 5 a.m. timeslot. "Some of it's familiar, so it's wonderful to experience again. Other parts, you can notice new things."

Bassett, like other Melville fans who make it a tradition to make each marathon, said that the communal experience of reading the book together and the story's vastness combine to produce an experience they look forward to repeating as soon as it ends.

"It's like church; you read the scripture and you internalize it," she said.

Although the crowds typically kick off the marathon with dozens in attendance, enough to spill out of the Seamen's Bethel during the portion of the marathon held there, they tend to thin out considerably as the event wears on. By 4 a.m. Sunday, only a handful remained in the museum's Jacobs Gallery and a few had scattered, in sleeping bags, to the nearby theater room.

"I tried to stay awake for as much of it as I could," Bassett said. "I slept for an hour here, two there."

The crowd rebounded to a full house by 11 a.m. Sunday, at the height of the mad Captain Ahab's pursuit of Moby-Dick.

"This is definitely more dramatic" here, said John Madden, an English teacher from Morristown, N.J., who was comparing the New Bedford event to the new, three-day Moby-Dick marathon held in New York.

As for why they keep coming back, everyone has their own whale's tale about that.

"For me, it was a life-changing book. ... I think it hits people in a very philosophical way," Madden said about discovering the book 15 years ago.

"I just absolutely love Melville," Fischer said.

Others said they came back because they always found something different within the vast epic.

"It lends itself to re-reading," said Robert Rocha, the museum's science director and one of the event's chief organizers. "It's like a really well-written piece of music."